Crushed, Yet Unbroken
by DreamALittleBigger
Summary: "Every time I put food into my mouth, I taste ashes. Every time I drink, I taste blood. Every time I close my eyes, I see images of the dead and dying – friends and comrades that are ghosts of my memory. And every time I go to sleep, I dream of him."


**DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling.**

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Crushed, Yet Unbroken

My mother told me about the ocean.

She told me about its deep green-blue water, almost black. She told me about the wind blowing away trouble. She told me about the waves crashing against rock and sand, foaming and singing and snarling in a vicious, beautiful dance. She told me about the salt in the air, the sand beneath. Since the beginning of my childhood I have heard stories about the magic of the ocean. But I have visited it only after my mother's death.

The war took everything away from me. Technically speaking, we won. But we have had to pay an unfair price in order to be able to claim that victory.

My parents – dead. My teachers – dead. My schoolmates – dead. My school – in ruins. My friends – exterminated like cockroaches for the mere sin of fighting side by side with Harry Potter. The Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived.

The Boy Who Wouldn't Die.

He is dead now, though. Just like everyone else I've cared about. Except maybe Ginny – she does her best. Ron, however, is gone. He eats and breathes, but he doesn't _live_. He doesn't smile or laugh, burying himself in work and fucking everything that moves.

But am I any better? The genius of the Golden Trio, I am a shell of my former self. Every time I put food into my mouth, I taste ashes. Every time I drink, I taste blood. Every time I close my eyes, I see images of the dead and dying – friends and comrades that are ghosts of my memory.

And every time I go to sleep, I dream of him.

His voice, clear and bright, as if he's standing right next to me. His eyes, the whirlpools of sky and liquid silver, threatening to drown me. His hair, the softest shade of gold and just as fine. His lips, so warm, so warm…and yet still able to make me shiver. I dream of these things – I reach out to them through the fog. I reach out, knowing I will never be able to touch them. And I wake up, drenched in sweat from the sweetest of nightmares, cursing my weakness and my heart for not letting him go.

I know it's wrong. It is the darkest of shadows that dwell in my heart. I should be angry, I know, that he had managed to escape. Disappointed. Furious. Not relieved. Never relieved.

But every time he appears to me in my dreams, I see his saddened face and feel a pang in my chest that means that he is safe, and that is all I can ask for, for now.

My life is the most tragic of tragedies. A love story went wrong. I am sick with disgust of myself. _He doesn't even know. He doesn't have a clue that I love him more that life itself._ It probably wouldn't matter if he did, anyway. I'd be just an embarrassment that he can disregard. A laugh to share with his fellow Death Eaters as they finish off another innocent victim with two simple words.

"How is it that I love him so much, and yet I would not hesitate to kill him?" I whisper to myself over the roar of the waves, as if asking for an answer – surely they would have picked up some wisdom over generations.

"Love who?" A curious voice asks, stunningly familiar, and before I can so much as think a single thought I turne around and my wand is pointed directly at his heart, the spell already out of my mouth.

"Stupefy!"

He is just as I remember him. His hair is longer – too long – and his cloak is dirty, but he still has that haunted look on his face and his eyes burn with that fire that, according to other, comes alive only around me.

I used to think it was love, or passion, or even lust. Now I know better.

Silence hangs heavily between us but I don't mind. I am used to this from the long afternoons we spent together once, me chained to the wall and him across from me, watching. I can feel rather than see his eyes on me as if he's trying to memorize my every feature – as if I'm about to disappear.

But he is not that lucky. Not today.

"So, Granger," he says finally. His voice transports me to another time, one filled with classes and homework, and taunts in the hallways. "How's it going?" He waits. I say nothing. "Going to turn me in now?" Silence. "I guess you are. Didn't expect anything better from a mudblood like you anyway."

The name-calling doesn't bother me; I am used to it by now. More often than not, it is the last word most men say before I kill them. _Mudblood._

"You need to come up with better insults, Malfoy. These are getting old." I watch his face intently, waiting for the wince that means I've hit a mark, but it doesn't come. He is just as unaffected by my insults as I am by his.

We know each other too well. And we're not playing dirty.

Yet.

"I miss you," he says softly. I am angry all of a sudden, because he has no right to say that to me.

"Is this why you're here, Malfoy?" I snap viciously. "To tell me you miss me? Well, isn't that sweet." I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself before I get too out of hand and continue. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't levitate you over the water and drown you right now."

He looks nervous for a moment before smoothing out his expression. Good. We examine each other warily, him wondering if I was serious and me drinking him in before I dump him in the water and get rid of him for good.

"Just one?" he asks meekly and I grind my teeth.

"Make it good."

"Oh, but my dear Granger," he sends me a heart-stopping smile. "Don't you remember? I don't do _good_."

My patience snapping like a rubber band, I have him up in the air and fifty feet above the waves with a flick of my wrist. My scientific mind tells me that if I lift the enchantment, the fall alone would kill him, but I cannot bring myself to care.

He doesn't even flinch, his eyes daring me to let him plunge into the darkness. A part of me wonders if that's why he sought me out – so I would end his pain – but I tell myself it's stupid.

Draco Malfoy is not that desperate.

But I wonder and that is enough to bring him down and take every spell off him. If Draco wants death, I will not give it to him. If he wants imprisonment, I will not give it to him. I will not give him anything he asks.

He sinks to his knees in front of me, just like I've always wanted. He bows, begging. "Please. Please. _Please_. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I can't live with myself. You're haunting me. Your voice. Your laughter. Please kill me and end it. I can't live without you. No," he adds, seeing the look on my face. "I know I haven't got a chance. God, Hermione, I don't _deserve_ a chance. I know I screwed up. You're worth so much more than that. But I can't live knowing you're in this world, unreachable. I want you. I love you. I will always love you. Your skin on mine, the feel of your lips – I will never be able to live without it. Hermione, kill me. _Even hell is better than here, with your face in my mind every time I close my eyes._ Please. Please…"

But I am already walking away. "Screw you," I whisper, tears falling down my face. I am hollow. I don't want to feel. I know the pain will come later, gut-wrenching and worse than all the _Crucio_s of the world, but right now I am hollow. I do not want to feel.

I do not want to love him.

I tear my eyes away from his and keep walking. I walk, crushing my dreams beneath my feet. I walk, locking my heart away and smashing it. I walk, the wind in my ears drowning out his voice. _I love you…Hermione…Never be able to live…Hell is better than here…_

I will force myself to live past the misery. By now, I know myself well enough to understand that happiness is not my future. I do not have a future. I do not have a life. I took it away from myself the moment I kissed him for the very first time that summer when we were sixteen. I had sold my heart to the devil and I will pay for it for the rest of my life. Draco was cruel enough to break me with words of love as I was bound to a cold wall, his lips the only fire that has ever burned me.

But I was not kind enough to steal his life away.

~0OO0~

The body of Draco Malfoy was never found.

~0OO0~

_Here lies_

_Hermione Jean Granger_

_Friend_

_Hero_

_Beloved_

_19 September, 1979 – 17 July, 2004_

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**As per request, there is a prequel available under the title "Trapped And Kissed By Freedom." I welcome you to check it out. Reviews are golden. **

**Hugs and butterfly kisses, **

**DreamALittleBigger**


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